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Dragon Age Wiki:Signatures
Signing your posts on , both in the article and non-article , is a good practice, and facilitates discussion by helping identify the author of a particular comment. Other users can then navigate to a talk page and address their comments to the specific, relevant user(s). Discussion is an important part of collaborative editing, because it helps all users to understand the progress and evolution of a work. Signature use that is intentionally and persistently disruptive may lead to blocking. When , articles should not be signed, because the article is a shared work, based on the contributions of many people, and one editor should not be singled out above others. Purpose of signatures Signatures identify you as a user and your contributions to the wiki. They encourage civility in discussions by identifying the author of a particular comment and the date and time at which it was made. Because of that, having an uncivil signature is strongly discouraged (in some cases, to the point of blocking the user until it is changed). In general anything that is not allowed in a username should not be used in a signature either. When signatures should and should not be used Any posts made to the user talk pages, article talk pages and any other discussion pages should be signed. Edits to articles should not be signed, as signatures on the Dragon Age Wiki are not intended to indicate ownership or authorship of any article. Rather, the takes care of the need to identify edits with users. Therefore, signatures should not be used in edit summaries, as they do not translate from ~~~~. In other instances, when posts should not be signed, specific instructions are provided to contributors. How to sign your posts Preferred option Using four tildes There are two ways to sign your posts: # At the end of your comments simply type four tildes (~), like this: ~~~~. # If you are using the option (it usually appears above the edit screen as a default),If the browser's settings don't allow JavaScript, the icons appear only if the settings are changed. If the browser is set not to show pictures, the icon can be found on "Your signature with timestamp" click the signature icon: , to add the four tildes. Your signature will appear after you have saved the changes. The end result is the same in both cases. Typing four tildes will result in the following: Since typing four tildes adds the time and date to your resulting signature, this is the preferred option for signing your posts in discussions. Other options Using three tildes Typing three tildes results in the following: However, since this does not date-stamp your signature, you may wish to sign this way only when leaving general notices on your user page or user talk page. This is also a convenient shortcut (rather than typing out the full code) when you want to provide a link to your user page. Using five tildes Typing five tildes will convert to a date stamp with the current date and time, without adding your signature, like this: In general, when communicating with others, you should use one of the previous options and not only a timestamp. Note that if you choose to contribute to the wiki without , you should still sign your posts. In this case your IP adress will take the place of your username. Your IP address might look something like this: 192.58.23.4. Some users prefer to use their IP address instead of a user name because they think that an IP provides them with more anonymity. In fact, a pseudonymous (that is, a registered user name) actually provides you with more protection of your identity, as IP addresses can be easily tracked by anyone. Registered users have their IP addresses hidden from public view. Also note that signing manually with a pseudonym or tag such as ''--anon'' does not give you more anonymity or privacy protection, since your IP address will still be stored in the page history. This also makes it more difficult for other users to communicate with you. If you choose to sign this way, you should still type four tildes: ''--anon'' ~~~~. Customizing your signature page, containing the section Raw Signature.]] Every editor's default signature will display when ~~~~ is typed. This looks like: Wikia (talk) , (UTC) Registered users can customize their signatures by going to and changing the field "Signature". If you do not check the "Custom signature" box, your signature will be treated as a nickname and displayed like: NICKNAME (talk) , (UTC) If you check the "Custom signature" box, you may enter arbitrary wikitext for your signature. However, you should consider the guidelines below. When customizing your signature, please keep the following in mind: A distracting, confusing, or otherwise unsuitable signature may adversely affect other users. For example, some editors find that long formatting disrupts discourse on talk pages, or makes working in the edit window more difficult. Complicated signatures contain a lot of code ("markup") that is revealed in the edit window, and can take up unnecessary amounts of narrative space, which can make both reading and editing harder. Never use another editor's signature. Impersonating another editor by using his or her username or signature is forbidden. Altering the markup code of your signature to make it look substantially like another user's signature may also be considered a form of impersonation. Editing the code of your signature to link it to another editor's userpage is not permitted. If you encounter a user whose signature is disruptive or appears to be impersonating another account, it is appropriate to ask that user to consider changing their signature to meet the requirements of this guideline. When making such a request, always be polite. Do not immediately assume that the user has intentionally selected a disruptive or inappropriate signature. If you are asked to change your signature, please avoid interpreting a polite request as an attack. Appearance and color Your signature should not blink, scroll, or otherwise inconvenience or annoy other editors. * Avoid markup such as and (or more) tags (which produce big text), or line breaks ( tags), since they disrupt the way that surrounding text displays. The limited use of non-breaking spaces to ensure that the signature displays on one line is allowed. * Be sparing with superscript or subscript. In some cases, this type of script can also affect the way that surrounding text is displayed. * Do not make your signature so small that it is difficult to read. * Do not include horizontal rules (----). To display your signature in a different color for yourself only, add the following to , replacing USERNAME with your username: .WikiaArticle ahref$="User:USERNAME" { color: #FFFFFF; } Remember to change the accordingly. Images Must not be used Images of any kind must not be used in signatures for the following reasons: * they are an unnecessary drain on server resources, and could cause server slowdown * a new image can be uploaded in place of the one you chose, making your signature a target for possible vandalism * they make pages more difficult to read and scan * they make it more difficult to copy text from a page * they are potentially distracting from the actual message * images do not scale with the text, making lines with images higher than those without * they clutter up the "file links" list on the image page every time you sign on a different talk page * images in signatures give undue prominence to a given user's contribution Use unicode characters instead As an alternative to using images, consider using unicode characters that are symbols, such as these: ☺☻♥♪♫♣♠♂♀§. Length Keep signatures short, both in display and markup. Extremely long signatures with a lot of HTML/wiki markup make page editing and discussion more difficult for the following reasons: * signatures that take up more than two or three lines in the edit window clutter the page and make it harder to distinguish posts from signatures; * long signatures give undue prominence to a given user's contribution; * signatures which have long HTML/wiki markup and contain no spaces cause other editors' edit boxes to show unnecessary horizontal scrollbars (such signatures may have spaces added to them by any editor); * signatures that occupy more space than necessary in the edit box displace meaningful comments, thus forcing the editor to scroll when writing their reply, and * the presence of such long signatures in the discussion also disrupts the reading of comments when an editor is formulating her or his reply. The software will automatically truncate both plain and raw signatures to 255 characters (characters used for HTML/wiki markup are included!). Links Internal links Signatures must include at least one internal link to your , user talk page, or contributions page; this allows other editors easy access to your talk page and contributions log. The lack of such a link is widely viewed as obstructive. If, while making modifications, you accidentally disable this link, ask for help if you need it. When you insert your signature on your talk page or user page, a link to that page will appear black, bold and inactive, so test your signature elsewhere. Disruptive links It is better to put information on your user page rather than in your signature. Brief additional internal links are generally tolerated when used to facilitate communication or to provide general information, but undesirable if seen as canvassing for some purpose. Do not place any disruptive internal links, such as SIGN HERE!!!, which refers to an autograph page. External links Do not include links to external websites in your signature. Mass posting of links to a particular website is prohibited. Posting a link to an external website with each comment you make on a talk page could be taken as link spamming, or an attempt to improve your website's ranking on search engines (which doesn't actually work in the first place). Categories Signatures must not contain . Categorizing talk pages by who has edited them is unhelpful, and the same information can be found by using . Dealing with unsigned comments The templates and can be used at the end of an unsigned comment to attach the username or IP to the comment. None of these templates automatically populate (fill in) the name or IP of the poster and the time of the post. That information is best copied from the history page and pasted into the following templates. It is also a good idea to notify users, especially new users, that they should sign their comments. See also *Forum:Signatures * Wikipedia:How to fix your signature Notes and references